Bentham's Outlines of Botany: Chapter 1: Section 13

§ 13. The Fruit.

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146. The Fruit (15) consists of the ovary and whatever other parts of the flower are persistent (i.e., persist at the time the seed is ripe), usually enlarged, and more or less altered in shape and consistence. It encloses or covers the seed or seeds till the period of maturity, when it either opens for the seed to escape, or fals to the ground with the seed. When stalked, its stalk has been termed a carpophore.

147. Fruits are, in elementary works, said to be simple when the result of a single flowers, compound when the proceed from several flowers closely pack or combined into a head. But as a fruit resulting from a single flower, with several distinct carpels, is compound is the sense in which that term is applied to the ovary, the terms single and aggregate, proposed for the fruit resulting from one or several flowers, may be more appropriately adopted. In descriptive botany a fruit is always supposed to result from a single flower unless the contrary be stated. It may, like the pistil, be syncarpous or apocarpous (125); and as in many cases carpels united in the flower may become separate as they ripen, an apocarpous fruit may result from a syncarpous pistil.

148. The involucre or bracts often persist and form part of aggregate fruits, but very seldom so in single ones.

149. The receptacle becomes occasionally enlarged and succulent; if when ripe it falls off with the fruit, it is considered as forming part of it.

150. The adherent part of the calyx of epigynous flowers always persists and forms part of the fruit; the free part of the calyx of epigynous flowers or the calyx of perigynous flowers, either persists entirely at the top or round the fruit, or the lobes along fall off, or the lobes fall off with whatever part of the calyx is above the insertion of the petals, or the whole of what is free from the ovary falls off, including the disk bearing the petals. The calyx of hypogynous flowers usually falls off entirely or persists entirely. In general a calyx is called deciduous if any part falls off. When it persists it is either enlarged round or under the fruit, or it withers and dries up.

151. The corolla usually falls off entirely; when it persists it is usually withered and dry (marcescent), or very seldom enlarges round the fruit.

152. The stamens either fall off, or more or less of their filaments persists, usually withered and dry,

153. The style sometimes falls off or dries up and disappears; sometimes persists, forming a point to the fruit, or becomes enlarged into a wing or other appendage to the fruit.

154. The Pericarp is the portion of the fruit formed of the ovary, and whatever adheres to it exclusive of and outside of the seed or seeds, exclusive also of the persistent receptacle, or of whatever portion of the calyx persists round the ovary without adhering to it.

155. Fruits have often external appendages called wings (alæ), beaks, crests, awns, etc., according to their appearance. They are either formed by persistent parts of the flower more or less altered, or grown out of the ovary of the persistents part of the calyx. If the appendage be a ring of hairs or scales round the top of the fruit, it is called a pappus.

156. Fruits are generally divided into succulent (including fleshy, pulpy, and juicy fruits) and dry. They are dehiscent when they open at maturity to let out the seeds, indehiscent when they do not open spontaneously but fall of with the seeds. Succulent fruits are usually indehiscent.

157. The principal kinds of succulent fruits are

the Berry, in which the whole substance of the pericarp is fleshy or pulpy, with the exception of the outer skin or rind, called the Epicarp. The seeds themselves are usually immersed in the pulp; but in some berries, the seeds are separated from the pulp by the walls of the cavity or cells of the ovary, which form as it were a thin inner skin or rind called the Endocarp

the Drupe, in which the pericarp, when ripe, consists of two distinct portions, and outer succulent one called the Sarcocarp, or Mesocarp (covered like the berry by a skin or epicarp), and an inner dry endocarp called the Putamen, which is either cartilaginous (of the conistence of parchment) or hard and woody. In the latter case it is commonly a stone, and the drupe a stone-fruit. When the putamen consists of several distinct stones or nuts, each enclosing a seed, they are called pyrenes, or sometimes kernels.

158. The principal kinds of dry fruits are

the Capsule or Pod*, which is dehiscent. When ripe the pericarp usually splits longitudinally into as many or twice as many pieces, called valves, as it contains cells or placentas. If these valves separate at the line of junction of the carpels, that is, along the line of the placentas or dissepiments, either splitting them or leaving them attached to the axis, the dehiscence is termed septicidal; if the valves separate between the placentas or dissepiments along their middle line, or leave them attached to the axis. Sometimes also the capsile discharges its seeds by slits, chinks or pores, more or less regularly arranged, or bursts irregularly, or separates into two parts by a horizontal line; in the latter case it is said to be circumscize.

the Nut or Achene, which is indehiscent and contains but a single seed. When the pericarp is thin in proprotion to the seed it encloses, the whole fruit (or each of its lobes) has the appearance of a single seed, and is so called in popular language. If the pericarp is thin and rather loose, it is often called a Utricle. A Samara is a nut with a wing at its other end.

159. Where the carpels of the ovary are distinct (125) they may severally become as many distinct berries, drupes, capsules, or achenes. Separate carpels are usually more or less compressed, laterally, with more or less prominent inner and outer edges, called sutures, and, if dehiscent, the carpel usually opens ar these sutures. A Follicle is a carpel opening at the inner suture only. In some cases where the carpels are united in the ovary they well separate when ripe; they are then called Cocci if one-seeded.

160. The peculiar fruits of some of the large Orders have received special names, which will be explained under each Order. Such are the siliqua and silicule of Cruciferæ, the legume of Leguminosæ, the pome of Pyrus and its allies, the pepo of Cucurbitaceæ, the cone of Coniferæ, the grain or caryopsis of Gramineæ, etc.

* In English descriptions, pod is more frequently used when it is long and narrow; capsule or sometimes pouch, when it is short and thick or broad

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